Actor: Richard Burton

Richard Burton was nominated seven times for Academy Awards and never won, which is the record for a performer with no win.

The voice is the instrument, trained in Welsh chapel and British theatre, and it made him a natural for Shakespeare and for narration.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, opposite Elizabeth Taylor, is the essential performance, playing a marriage as sustained combat, and the two were among the most heavily reported couples of the century.

He drank enormously, took a great deal of work purely for money, and was open about both. Becket, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Equus are the ones to argue for.